Nigeria: The Ogun State Government, in partnership with the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) and Lafarge Africa, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the joint development of the Ogun State Forest Landscape Restoration Project.
The MOU would enable the creation of a legal entity to develop the project, engage development agencies and climate change funds and promote it to large agriculture and forestry investors. At maturity, the project is set to transform 1080km2 of heavily degraded land into an arable green area. It is designed to employ innovative approaches to achieve best-of-breed environmental, social and economic results. The scheme's uniqueness rests in the way it combines land restoration with business development objectives by applying the latest findings of agro-ecology and agroforestry.
The first part of the area will be rehabilitated through mixed reforestation to provide biodiversity hotspot corridors, allowing nomadic herders to cross the area with their herds and encouraging subsistence farming. The other part is expected to be leased to agro-industrial investors interested in the development of large-scale tree crop such as cocoa, coffee, rubber and oil palm as well as annual crops such as maize, sesame, cotton and cassava, among others. Forestry projects within strict social and environmental guidelines may also be considered.
"The restoration and enhancement of our forests benefits the environment and creates jobs in rural communities," said Ogun State governor Ibikunle Amosun. "Increasing the pace and scale of restoration is critically needed to address a variety of threats, including fire, climate change, deforestation and others, for the benefit of our ecosystems and forest-dependent communities. This project will show that enterprise and achieving strong mitigation are mutually supportive in tropical agriculture."
Group managing director/CEO of Lafarge Africa, Peter Hoddinott, said that the organisation's strong commitment to environment and social sustainability in its areas of operations had led the company to naturally support the Ogun State project. Promising a strong positive impact on the issues, Hoddinott said that the use of agro-ecology and agro-forestry principles in the projects would increase the company's productivity, ensure the land becomes one of Nigeria's best carbon capture areas and generate biomass waste that Lafarge intends to use to fire its cement kilns.